The Empire project: Trade policy in interwar Canada

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Lampe, Markus; O'Rourke, Kevin Hjortshoj; Reiter, Lorenz; Yotov, Yoto V.
• 署名单位: Vienna University of Economics & Business; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Vienna University of Economics & Business; Drexel University; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.104024
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Trade policy; Trade agreements; Interwar tariffs; Trade elasticities; Trade policy uncertainty; canada; Empire

摘要

This paper uses a new dataset on the universe of Canadian imports and tariffs between 1924 and 1936, disaggregated into 1697 goods originating in 112 countries, to analyse the impact on Canadian imports of interwar Canadian trade policy, including the 1932 Ottawa trade agreements. Rather than use a dummy variable approach, we compute the impact of individual tariffs which varied substantially across goods, trade partners, and time. We perform a variety of counterfactual exercises to determine the impact of tariffs on trade flows. The overall impact of post-1929 tariff shifts, including the 1932 agreements, was relatively small, reflecting the fact that Canadian trade policy was already highly protectionist: trade agreements can have heterogeneous effects on participants because the shocks involved are different. Compared with a free trade counterfactual, the impact of the overall structure of protection on Canadian imports was large.